scan.
To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely.
Meaning & usage
To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely.
She scanned the passage carefully but could not find what she was looking for.
He scanned the horizon.
To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely. To inspect, analyse or go over, often to find something.
to scan the hard drive for errors
To look about for; to look over quickly.
To look about for; to look over quickly. To perform lexical analysis; to tokenize.
To create an image of something with the use of a scanner.
to scan a photograph
to scan internal organs by means of computed tomography
To read with an electronic device.
to scan a barcode
to scan a QR code
To mount by steps; to go through with step by step.
To read or mark so as to show a specific metre.
To conform to a metrical structure.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *skend-der. Proto-Italic *skandō Latin scandōbor. Middle English scanden Middle English scanne English scan From late Middle English scanne (“to mark off verse to show metrical structure”), from earlier scanden, from Late Latin scandere (“to scan verse”), from Classical Latin scandō (“to climb, rise, mount”), from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to jump, dart, climb, scale, scan”).
A close investigation. Of written things, a careful reading.
A close investigation. Of written things, a cursory reading: a skim.
An instance of scanning.
The operators vacated the room during the scan.
The result or output of a scanning process.
The doctors looked at the scans and made a diagnosis.
A higher-order function that applies a binary operation to a sequence of values, starting with an accumulator, and returns a new sequence with the results.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *skend-der. Proto-Italic *skandō Latin scandōbor. Middle English scanden Middle English scanne English scan From late Middle English scanne (“to mark off verse to show metrical structure”), from earlier scanden, from Late Latin scandere (“to scan verse”), from Classical Latin scandō (“to climb, rise, mount”), from Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to jump, dart, climb, scale, scan”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.